Until its new parent company SFX Entertainment completes its “going private” process, Beatport has alerted artists and labels that it will not pay out its owed royalties over the past quarter.
For larger labels this, seemingly temporary, issue may not play as a big deal, however for small labels, 3 months of income has now been suspended. As Beatport counts as nearly 90% of revenue for some labels, the quarterly non-payment is significant.
As for Beatport itself, they remain confident that the suspension will be, “coming to an end in the next few weeks, at which time all payments will be able to be made”. Additionally, the platform has implemented direct competition to Soundcloud by allowing monetized mixes, uploadable straight to the platform, albeit (per Beatport’s terms & conditions) at a meager payout of 10% of a download sale to the mix creator, and 5% of income from a stream, while also acquiring all rights to the music.
You can read the entire letter from Beatport explaining the suspension of payouts on Music Business Worldwide here. You can also check out an FB post below from New Jersey-based DJ Morgan Geist, which contains text from Beatport’s letter to artists on the matter, below.
Source: Music Business Worldwide
